Comments

007peter: Who should I believe? (1) Nikon's claim that smartphone has indeed DAMAGE its sell, or (2) DPR defenders claiming Smartphone will NEVER harm the sell of iLC. Both cannot be true.

Indeed, but there are limits to what people are going to be willing to carry around with them at all times (and limits to what's possible with digital zoom and necessarily smallish sensors). The folks that are really interested in more than well-executed snapshots will still have reasons to buy a dedicated picture-taking device, whatever shape that may be.

007peter: Who should I believe? (1) Nikon's claim that smartphone has indeed DAMAGE its sell, or (2) DPR defenders claiming Smartphone will NEVER harm the sell of iLC. Both cannot be true.

It's not about ILCs, really. It's about compacts (digital Instamatics, if you will). It's only about ILCs insofar as it was once almost necessary to get an ILC or higher-end bridge camera to get a decent digital snapshot, but that time's mostly gone anyway. Most people have never really wanted a camera or were never interested in photography - they wanted a thing that takes pictures, and they wanted the pictures the thing took. Actually decent camera phones that let them take, see and share those pictures with the thing they're carrying anyway ticks most of the boxes most of the time. There's little perceived need for cheap compact anymore; that isn't going to have an enormous impact on "serious" cameras, or on "serious" photographers.

The problem for us is that those people used to subsidize our hobby/profession pretty heavily in their quest for a better Brownie. The entry level ILCs were cheap because people who didn't want them needed them and bought them. Not any more.

jhphotography: An exciting addition to their range. I've got an eye on LEDs in this power range with a view to move to constant lighting for a mix of studio photography and videography. But I'm waiting for some that have decent flash functionality, as in short duration triggered bursts, with an increased output compared to their continuous power. The Rotolight Anova Pro does this, but they're much less powerful and not compatible with Bowens. I guess the phosphor coating on the Apature 300d COB might mean they can't support flash duration bursts without dropping CRI.. Pity.

It's basically an LED blonde. We got an awful lot of photography done with blondes and redheads back when ISO 400 meant taking a big quality/grain hit even on a 4x5 and dichroic filters ate a lot of light. It ain't flash, but it's a lot of light nonetheless (and you don't need to deal with the set-things-on-fire-at-a-distance heat).

It was *possible*, but the usual thing for Hasselblad was to marry a digital back and a body ("modern marriages", since you could marry two different backs to two different bodies). Basically, they did a bench calibration/shimming/adjustments for the autofocus system, and that was part of the price for the back. It wasn't so much that they wanted to keep people from using the back on a view/technical camera (that's been possible for a while, though you did have to buy the back with a body), but that they wanted to keep people from mixing and matching unmarried bodies and backs, which leads to focus issues (basically the reason why there's AF fine tuning on DSLRs now - MF cameras ran into the issue long before smaller DSLRs did). It's a bit of a late decision, but I think Hasselblad saw themselves as a poor second choice to scanning backs for view cameras in the beginning and it never occurred to them that someone would want a 645 back if they didn't happen to own the camera already.

zxaar: So Manny must be selling his A9 now that he found that it is hard to find differences.

If he does not sell his A9 and keep using it then i would conclude that he can tell enough differences between cameras and in favour of A9 to keep it (and for someone to buy too)

Oddly enough, there can be differences - significant differences - between cameras that *don't* show up in the resulting image. In fact,there's no particular reason why a camera that is ultimately easier for a particular photographer to work with (because of ergonomics, a particular feature, or interactivity with other gear, etc.) can't be a better choice than another camera that has objectively better image quality. Sometimes even having a 'qualifying camera body' for professional support services makes all the difference in the world, even if there are no other material differences to be had. Whatever point you think you were trying to make is specious.

AstroStan: If it ever come to fruition the f/0.9 will be a massive lens and a challenge for the sensor. That light cone and FOV will likely preclude micro-lens design and is probably specific to a BSI sensor.

And if any short lens could be called "astro" (& IMHO none are) then this could be it unless the huge number of glass surfaces conspire to produce star reflections. Nightscapes could capture fairly deep sky in exps short enough to minimize star trailing.

Theoretically, at least, a BSI sensor can have wider acceptance angles at the sensel positions for a given "well depth" since they don't require lit-side circuitry between the sensels. Realistically, though, that would make a lot more of a difference with a monochrome sensor than it would with a colour filter array. It's far more likely that a large part of the collimation will be handled by the rear elements of the lens, mooting the issue.

The Name is Bond: Sounds a bit like bezier. I'm surprised there isn't more contrasting it with bezier.

Sounds like good old-fashioned splines to me. The existing pen tool uses Bezier curves. With a spline, you just put in constraint points - it's essentially like putting nails in a board, then bending a springy ruler around the nails, except without the nasty real-world physics stuff getting in the way like it did with drawing pins and spline rulers on a drawing board in the old days (been there, did that). It's a lot more intuitive than a Bezier curve, but you need more constraint points when the curves get especially tight or complex.

jwasturias: These would probably be for Product Photography.I wonder if the 90mm and 135mm have a floating element. If they do, that may be the reason that the use of an extension tube was not mentioned. (They did mention it as option for the 50mm). Lenses with Floating element don't work well if you move the whole lens out.

That's tilt, but it seems you've completely ignored what shift/rise/fall bring to the table. Focus stacking cannot and will not let you work around the ability to divorce your framing from your point of view (admittedly, to a somewhat limited degree) without cropping or keystoning (which works out to being nearly the same as cropping once you've made corrections) that movements get you. No, a TS/pc lens is not quite the same thing as a camera with full movements, but it's a darned sight better than a fixed tube for products.

Geekapoo: The good news about using a flash is that in the digital age, you can experiment extensively and figure out how enabling it is and how best to use a flash for your purposes. Sure beats the heck out of paying film/development costs!

Frenemy, I'd say. It beat the heck out of speed-souping test frames, but you needed to know both your "real" emulsion and the Paranoid you were using pretty well to be able to translate between them - and there was always something lost in translation.

Jumpster: Never seen a flash bounced off a 30 foot ceiling create light like that. Doesn't seen possible?

It wasn't possible when flash guide numbers were around 28-32 (metres at ISO 100) and, say a wedding photographer had a choice between VPS and VPH shooting in colour. These days, your guide number is going to be closer to 60 on a "full sized" speedlight, and the only way a modern camera's ISO 6400 penalizes you, if you need it, is if you like pixel-peeping and think any noise reduction is of the devil. You point the flash where you want the light to be coming from; it doesn't need to be straight up/shortest path. Nor does it have to be all of the light you're using.

Irakly Shanidze: The flash has only one contact on the hot shoe, which makes is compatible with any camera that has a hot shoe. Why Canon/Nikon only? What am I missing?

At this price level, they're probably just trying to avoid complaints/returns from people with older Sony/Minolta cameras that used a proprietary shoe, etc. Never underestimate the cost of servicing clueless bargain hunters; they'll kill you every time.

DaveClark: "compressed from 52MB to just 15MB, and you would be hard-pressed to spot the difference between the two versions." DL Cade 7/19/2017

That's about as positive an endorsement as dpreview is going to give. Damien's December 3, 2015 review suggested that they are holding off from giving a full endorsement - which may or may not come in the future.

"More tests will be required to see exactly what is lost and what is at stake,.. If you can't wait for the results of my testing you can download the $19.99 standard standalone version of JPEGmini for a free trial." Damien 12/3/2015

No, the Pro is essentially a re-write of the Standard using different memory allocation and multi-threading/multi-processor. It happened after a "side project" that was meant to make a small additional income turned out to be a little more in demand than the author had imagined, with demands for better performance. (I also believe it's 64-bit only, so it won't run on some older machines, but I could be wrong there.) It's more of a GUI-enable port of the server version than an enhanced version of the Standard, as I understand it. (I'm not connected with it; I've just been following the project for a long time.) There just wasn't a good reason to back-port the changes to the budget/free option and then cripple it if a bargain version with pretty reasonable limitations could still sell and a free "good will" version was still a useful introduction - $20 is better than a lost sale, and while the code base is clever, it's not big (apart from the UI), so maintenance stays reasonable as well.

DaveClark: "compressed from 52MB to just 15MB, and you would be hard-pressed to spot the difference between the two versions." DL Cade 7/19/2017

That's about as positive an endorsement as dpreview is going to give. Damien's December 3, 2015 review suggested that they are holding off from giving a full endorsement - which may or may not come in the future.

"More tests will be required to see exactly what is lost and what is at stake,.. If you can't wait for the results of my testing you can download the $19.99 standard standalone version of JPEGmini for a free trial." Damien 12/3/2015

If you can live within the standard version's limits, it's a $20 no-brainer. Heck, if you can stay within the trial version's limits (it's an images-per-day limit; I haven't heard about them adding a time limit or anything), it's a free no-brainer. Start-up time sucks (it's a .NETapplication), but it does what it says on the tin - quickly, once it's started - so even if you're just looking to get email attachment sizes down without killing your pics every now and then, you can probably use it.

...and it's not so much "higher compression" as "variable compression". JPEG can use different compression levels in each image block, but most JPEG compressors/encoders do a single global compression (where each 8x8 block is compressed at the same level). If you want more compression, you get worse results in parts of the image that can't stand it. JPEGmini (and similar programs) go through an existing (high-quality/low-compression) JPEG image looking for blocks that can be compressed more without damaging them, while leaving high-detail blocks alone. In general, you hand it a "12" or a "100" (depending on the program you used to do the original JPEG), and it gives you back a file that looks the same (you literally have to do a diff in order to spot anything), but is about the size of an "8" or a "70". Results vary by image, of course; not every image has areas that can take a lot of additional compression. I find it as useful for sending stuff to a print service as I do for the web.

AlanG: There is a lot of weird complaining and speculative assumptions here. Plus people who relish displaying their ignorance in public.

What we do know is the photographer had a contract with P&G that specified terms of license. What we don't know is what was written in that contract... especially anything that stipulates that a violation of its terms would constitute copyright infringement. Presumably the images were registered with the copyright office in a timely manner.

For instance it is common for a license to say that usage is only granted upon payment in full. Otherwise it might just be a contract dispute and not a copyright issue at all.

By entering into a licensing agreement, P&G is estopped from claiming they didn't know about the copyright. And this is both a contract dispute (provided P&G try to make a claim that the license was somehow extended) *and* copyright violation. There is no "or".

tomjar: I know zero about corporate management and I know Nikon is involved in different areas of industry. I can only comment as a consumer of let's say cheaper "prosumer" cameras. I have been on a lookout for new cameras to replace my two Nikons, D5000 and P7700 (an exchangeable lens camera and one highly capable and versatile compact camera), since more than a year now. I don't have money to throw around and for trying out this and that. I would love to stay with Nikon since I don't like changing platforms if not necessary, but I don't think I will be buying another Nikon anytime soon. It will be a Panasonic mirrorless camera and a Canon compact instead, most likely and soon.

To me Nikon's decisions in the "prosumer" segment (except for the DSLRs) over the last years look like those of a headless chicken. South Park episode Margaritaville comes to mind...

"Prosumer" is a contraction of producer/consumer (and not a "somewhere between professional and consumer" idea). "Prosumer gear" is affordable and accessible (for varying definitions of both), allowing consumers of the gear to produce their own high-quality content. It goes back to things like home audio recording studios and desktop video production. It's about having the ability to produce "professional quality" results, not about looking like and pretending to be a pro.

fenceSitter: A battery operated tripod head sounds like a Rube Goldberg contraption to me, and an obvious point of failure to boot. Proprietary, nonstandard batteries add insult to injury. Combined with Manfrotto's p!ss poor customer service, it's an absolute dealbreaker for me.

The battery is neither non-standard nor proprietary either, for that matter.

felix from the suburbs: As a long time Sony user I was looking for a secondary camera that would let me use some of the newer Sigma Art and Tamron lenses that only seem to be available for Nikon or Canon mounts. I have read some of the negative comments here, but, in my case, the 7500 seems to be just what I was looking for. Hopefully it will be available in Toronto at the same time as it's available in the rest of the world.